


Only One I Dream Of: A Drabble Collection

by objectlesson



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drinking, Established Relationship, First Time, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, M/M, Miscommunication, Mutual Pining, Pining, Recreational Drug Use, The X Factor Bungalow, The X Factor Era, Timestamp, present day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 19:10:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 14,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15153743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/objectlesson/pseuds/objectlesson
Summary: A collection of all the m/m One Direction drabbles and timestamps I've written on tumblr, so my readers on here aren't missing out!





	1. Valentines Day

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys! I get a lot of prompts and do writing challenges on tumblr, and I've been debating for awhile if I should move some of those over here so anyone can read them! They range in length from like 500-1k words, and most of them are canon compliant Larry but there are a few other things sprinkled in, including some AUs and Ziall! Check the authors notes of every chapter PLEASE for tags and triggers. 
> 
> Enjoy!
> 
> Valentines Day tags: canon, present day, Larry, smut, fluff, domesticity, mentions of light, casual recreational drug use.

It’s 9 am on Valentine’s day, and Harry’s been up for an hour, his coffee half-gone and cold in his mug. He drinks it anyway, refusing to be one of those rich people who lets thing go to waste, his head cocked as he scrolls through his phone, killing time until Louis wakes up and they can get stoned together. 

He forgets, sometimes, in these early grey mornings that blend into one another, just exactly where Louis is in relation to him. They spend so much more time together these days, but he’s still not totally used to it; he’ll pull up his chat window with Louis and try to remember what time zone he’s in before it hits him that he’s right _there._ Down the hall and to the left, wrapped in a duvet and snoring lightly. The thrill in Harry’s chest—that it’s Valentine's day, and even though it’s sort of a stupid, superficial, straight-person holiday, he gets to spend it with Louis this year—leaves him momentarily breathless. 

Harry finishes his cold coffee, wondering if maybe they had to believe it was a stupid, superficial, straight-person holiday the last few years _because_ there was no guarantee they’d get to be together. If you strip the symbolism from a holiday, it’s just another day apart. They have coping mechanisms that they’ve developed over the years, but lately, as things change and weeks spent out of the limelight spread out into months, giving them more time, more privacy, Harry has noticed some of those coping mechanisms peeling off and blowing away in layers as they’re no longer needed. It’s a weird feeling, but a good one. 

After placing his mug in the sink, Harry stands up, strips off his shirt, and pads down the hallway to the master bedroom. 

The morning light is spilling in, and Louis is spread out, languid and glorious, on his stomach, his golden back a perfect concave for Harry to press his face into, the sheets gathered around one of his legs while the other is bent. Harry’s breath catches, and he just looks for a minute, tortures himself by imagining what it might be like to love Louis but to not be able to touch him, to not have permission to wake him up with heavy, stubble-rough kisses down his spine. It’s a fine thing to think about because it isn’t true. He has Louis, will have him forever. 

Louis stirs, and Harry shakes his head, trance broken. He climbs onto the bed on his hands and knees, reaching for Louis’s sleep-warm skin, smoothing his palms over the back of his bent thigh toward the curve of his arse, moving the hair against the grain, watching the muscle twitch reflexively beneath the skin. “Lou,” he murmurs, nuzzling into the round, pale curve of his bum-cheek. “S’Valentine’s day. And I want you.” 

“What?” Louis rasps, voice just a high, thin thing against his pillow. “S’what day now?” 

“Valentine’s day,” Harry repeats, straddling his bent leg at the thigh and cupping his bum, marveling at it as he sometimes does. “You know.” 

“Oh, are we celebrating that?” Louis asks, rubbing his face into the sheets and making cute snuffling sounds. “Guess we can, yeah?” 

“We can do whatever you want,” Harry tells him, thumbing along the crack of Louis’s arse, eyes trained on the soft dusting of golden hair, mouth watering as he imagines the scrape of it under his tongue. He knows what _he_ wants, anyway, so he asks Louis, inching his hand into the hot, sweat-damp crease. “Do you want my tongue?” 

“Hmm?” Louis sighs, still half-asleep, and Harry ducks down to press an open-mouthed kiss between his own splayed fingers, Louis’s skin so warm and salt-tangy under his lips. “Oh,” Louis gasps, arching his back, pressing into the heat of Harry’s mouth. “That.” 

“Yeah,” Harry grinds out, voice getting low, hungry. He’s so easy for Louis, always wants him in this dirty, broken-open way. “Lemme eat you out?” 

“M’not showered,” Louis reminds him, already circling his hips sleepily, cheek mushed against the mattress as he turns to look at Harry with bleary eyes. “Like, s’been a bit.” 

Harry knows he’s half-joking; after seven years, Louis _knows_ that not being clean isn’t a deterrent for Harry, not at all. Harry loves post-gym sex, sweaty sex, sleep-breath sex, _loves_ having Louis’s scent all over him, loves being marked in it. He groans a little, pulling Louis apart gently and thumbing over his hole, which is crinkled and dark and lovely and just _begging_ to be sucked on, to be fucked open on the tip of his tongue. “Please,” he begs, getting down on his stomach inches away from Louis where he’s split, letting him feel his breath huff out over him. “C’mon, Lou.” 

“Yeah, okay,” Louis sighs. “Can’t promise I’ll stay awake for it, though.” 

Harry’s stomach flips because this is another thing that he _loves_ , the idea of Louis being only half-invested in sex while he’s ravenous for it, like Louis’s just offering his body to Harry’s hungry mouth because he’s so greedy and needs it so badly, needs to taste Louis or else he’ll _die._ It never really works out that way: he’s _good_ at what he does, and Louis likes to come too much to feign disinterest for very long. Still, Harry’s half-hard and drooling at the idea. 

He holds Louis apart and just kisses him at first, lips warm and soft and tender as he mouths down Louis’s crack before licking deliberately over his hole, wet and sloppy because he always gets saliva-flooded when he does this, he can’t _help it._ Louis tastes like heat and spice and musk, and Harry would be moved by that singular flavour _alone_ , but Louis’s also making noises as he pushes his arse up into Harry’s face, breath coming out in a sharp, high whine. “Fuck, Hazza, that’s so good, so wet.” 

“Gonna make you so wet, gonna get you dripping,” Harry slurs, voice muffled by skin, but he doesn’t fucking care, he needs _more_ , so he thumbs Louis apart and flicks his tongue back and forth over his rim desperately, loving the way that Louis’s hole flutters and twitches, the way that his cheeks tense in Harry’s fierce grip. 

He moans into Louis’s crack, whimpering with each hungry lick, knowing that the vibrations are making Louis’s hips grind and snap, so much sensation anytime but _especially_ when he’s hardly awake. Harry just…he _wants it_ so badly, wants Louis all over his face, wants Louis stealing his breath, smothering him, suffocating him. He stiffens his tongue to drive it up inside Louis, stomach dropping at the filthy breach, the salt, the bitterness. Louis cries out, wordlessly whimpering as he fists in the sheets and fucks himself back onto Harry’s tongue like he needs it deeper. 

Usually, Louis talks Harry through this, tells him how good he feels, how pretty his mouth is, how much he loves the sounds he makes when he eats him out, but he’s beyond words right now, just wheezing and yelping and grinding into the mattress desperately. Maybe because Harry caught him before he woke up all the way, maybe because Harry’s especially eager, maybe because they’re getting to spend some stupid holiday together, which makes it seem a lot less stupid. It clearly feels _good,_ unspeakably good, all his words lost as Harry licks him out, messy and rough, holding him in place so that he can’t squirm away even if he wanted to. 

At some point, Louis gets his hand on his cock, and Harry doesn’t have enough self-awareness in the moment to tell how close he has Louis, but after a minute of Louis clumsily stroking himself, he clenches up, gasps, and comes. Harry knows this because he can feel Louis’s hole spasming madly around his tongue, the dirtiest, most perfect feeling, enough to make his own cock twitch pathetically in his joggers, precum smeared all over the inside. 

Louis collapses and Harry stays, licking him gently between long, lingering kisses, occasionally pulling back to smooth his fingers over Louis’s sloppy hole. “Happy Valentine’s day, I guess,” Louis rasps weakly, voice nearly gone, hand gesturing loosely in the air beside himself with a delicate bend of his wrist. Harry hums happily, pressing a final, spit-slick kiss to Louis’s rim before he’s crawling up on his elbows, wanting so badly to kiss Louis’s mouth, to show him how wet his face is, how strong he smells. 

“Thank you,” he murmurs, nuzzling into Louis’s bare shoulder. “For everything.” 


	2. Just Once

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This was written for the prompt "just once."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the only truly angsty things I've ever written, though likely just because it's a snapshot of a misunderstanding. I promise they work stuff out after this! Tags: canon, Larry, TXF, miscommunication, pining, angst, unrequited love that's actually requited but they're young and silly, so.

“Just once,” Louis whispers fiercely, face pressed into Harry’s soft, dimpled cheek, breath coming out so fast and harsh that it feels like fire. “Then we’re just mates again, yeah?” 

Harry whines wordlessly, hands desperately clawing all over Louis’s shoulders, up into his hair, touching him like he wants him, like he _really wants him,_ like this isn’t some stupid, meaningless game to him. Louis can’t stop breathing from his skin, though, _knows_ he should stop, _knows_ he should self-preserve, but he can’t help it, not when Harry smells like heaven and feels even better and is _touching him_ like there’s nothing else in the world. “Why…why only once?” Harry asks, getting his thigh between Louis’s legs and pushing up, breath coming out in a short, crushed gasp as Louis bears down. “It doesn’t _have_ to be.” 

_It does_ , though. Louis knows that this can’t be what he wants it to be, that all his daydreams about leaving Hannah and moving into a flat with Harry in London and spending the rest of his life with this boy are nothing but fantasies, that they _can’t_ happen because Harry’s sixteen and doesn’t know what he wants, _can’t_ know. Louis hardly knows what he wants now, and he _certainly_ didn’t two years ago. Harry’s too lovely and too smart and too brilliant, he burns too brightly. He’ll only break Louis’s heart, fool around with him, figure out his sexuality before he moves on to someone new. Someone better. 

Louis mouths all over his neck, sucking a mark directly over Harry’s thunderous pulse. “It should be,” he sighs, eventually. 

“But _why?”_ Harry persists, digging his nails into Louis’s shoulders. “Am I…is it because I’m a boy? Because you have a girlfriend?” he says it low and quiet, voice tinged with guilt, like Louis’s life back in Donny is somehow his shame, too, and Louis’s heart breaks a little. 

“No,” he murmurs, because he’d leave that life behind in a second if he knew he got Harry forever. _It’s because you’re too young and too good, and this isn’t a forever thing for you like it is for me._ “It just is, okay?” 

Harry nods with resignation and lets himself be kissed, and Louis tries uselessly to get his fill of something he’ll be forever seeking, forever wanting. _S’better like this_ , he tells himself. _Just once, to have something to remember you by._ But even as he thinks it, it feels like a lie. 


	3. Bone Hotel

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis works front desk at a dog daycare and harry is his most rude (and attractive) customer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was written for the prompt "Is this an alternate timeline or did you just crack a smile for me?" I actually have a much bigger, longer dog daycare au planned about them all working at one, but this is a sort of cute, fluffy, funny preliminary to get you all warmed up. Tags: AU, rich harry, dog daycare employee Louis, humor, fluff.

Louis works the front desk at a doggy daycare, so truly, he’s seen his fair share of awful human beings. Like, dog parents in general are a little intense, but the sort who can afford to bring their dogs to _daycare_ every day are not only intense, they’re rich, and being rich makes you _insane._ Louis has seen people with $2,000 purebred Aussies from the best breeders in the country _lose it_ over a $20 service charge. He’s seen people drive off in a rage _in their Ferraris._ It’s wild. 

Most of the clients are polite enough, though, even if they’re out of touch with the real world, and the dogs, at least, make up for it. Louis loves dogs. Plus, dogs tell you a lot about their people. Like, stressed-out workaholics have needy, anxious dogs. Yuppie hipster house-flippers have the cutest (and usually most neurotic and spoiled) rescue dogs. Grumpy old people usually have grumpy old dogs. 

There’s only one regular he can’t figure out, not from his dog or from any other contextual clue. It might be because Louis has a massive crush on him. It might also be because this guy, for reasons unknown, _hates_ Louis. 

Maybe it’s not actual full-blown hate, but he at least never makes eye contact with him. Which is absurd, really, because his dog, a fluffy white Maltese named Carolina, _loves_ Louis with the passion of a thousand fiery tongue kisses. He knows because she tries to give him as many as she can every time the guy, whose name is Harry Styles (ridiculous, truly, is he a porn star), drops her off for the day. 

He’d chalk it up as being a weird, more than _slightly_ homophobic thing if Harry wasn’t so nice, charming, and normal around his coworker, Leeroy, who literally starts sentences with, “Honey, I’m _gay,_ so...,” as if that’s relevant to every anecdote he tells. Harry is, as far as Louis can tell, incredibly friendly to _every single other human_ who works at Bone Hotel. Literally everyone. All the girls have crushes on him, too, and he always leaves enormous tips for whoever brings Carolina out after a boarding stay. He has a winning smile, complete with dimples. Louis has seen it plenty of times _but never_ directed at him. 

He has no fucking idea what he’s done to deserve the tense silent treatment that Harry always gives him, but at least it isn’t solely his imagination; Zayn has noticed, too. They spend most afternoons discussing it at length in the breakroom. “He tips you the same, right? Meaning he doesn’t think you give bad service or something, so what’s the problem?” 

“Uh, the cutest dog parent in all of Bone Hotel’s client roster cannot meet my eyes and always _runs_ out of the building when I’m at the front desk, and you think I _don’t_ have a problem?! I mean, do I _smell_ , Zayn? What is his issue?” 

“Maybe you make him nervous like he makes you nervous,” Zayn shrugs, raising a sly eyebrow. “I’m pretty sure he’s gay. Like, every time Taylor flirts with him, he looks really uncomfortable.” 

“He doesn’t make me nervous for any other reason besides the part where he _won’t look at me._ I dread when he comes in because it’s always so awkward. And I feel like shit afterward.”

“Because you have a big, fat crush on him. You love his long, luscious hair. You wanna formally adopt his dog. You wanna have a gross marriage ceremony where Carolina is the flower girl. You wanna honeymoon in Belize with him. Have his babies so that Carolina can get jealous like Lady in _Lady and the Tramp_. The whole lot,” Zayn ticks off dryly, his voice deadpan. 

And, well, he’s not wrong, so the conversation usually ends there.

\---

It’s a rainy day when things change. Harry comes in cradling Carolina instead of walking her on her leash, probably because she’s a puddle-hating princess-dog. The second she sees Louis, she starts going mad, squirming and yipping and wiggling, and before Harry can get a hold on her, she’s literally jumping from his arms and _onto_ the front desk, sending bits of paper and a ceramic bowl of treats flying across the lobby. 

Louis holds onto Carolina while Harry, who’s so flustered and, _god,_ so pink, scrambles to clean everything up. “Shit…sorry...so sorry, oh, my god, m’so embarrassed,” he babbles, and really, these are the first words he’s ever said to Louis besides the customary, “Thank you!” whenever he drops Carolina off. Without looking up. It’s absurd because _Leeroy_ has had full-fledged conversations with Harry about his fancy music industry job. 

“Hey, hey, s’alright, it happens...at least she isn’t a German shepherd, yeah? Carolina can only do so much damage at half a stone,” Louis jokes as he checks Harry in with one hand and holds Carolina’s Gucci fucking collar with the other. He looks up when he’s finished, and _miraculously,_ Harry’s looking back, the corner of his mouth upturned in a sheepish half-grin, his cheeks still absurdly flushed as he arranges the stuff back on the counter. He has green eyes. Louis has never noticed that before. “Have I entered an alternate universe, or did you really just crack a smile for me?” Louis asks, feeling bold now that Harry’s dog has done something naughty. Even the worst and meanest of customers will grovel after their dogs are bad. And Harry isn’t mean…just confusing. 

He flushes deeper. “Is it that obvious? Damn...I mean, I try to act normal around you, I swear. Didn’t realize…well. M’sorry, m’the most massive twat.” 

He says it like Louis _knows_ why he acts the way he does. Like it’s obvious. “Only to me,” Louis says carefully, petting Carolina while she wiggles. “I was beginning to think I smelled.” 

“What?! No! Oh, my god, no. I mean...I don’t think so. M’sure you smell wonderful,” Harry stutters, and Louis _really_ thinks this might be an alternate universe he’s just fallen into. “I just...I knew I’d act like this if I ever talked to you, so I try to keep it very...you know. Just drop Carrie off before I say or do anything stupid.” 

“Why would you say or do anything stupid? So far, you’ve been perfectly charming. And much nicer than you usually are,” Louis adds, and he really hopes that he isn’t, like, _flirting_ at work. Because that’s a terrible idea, even though Leeroy seemingly thinks flirting _is_ work, he does it so much. 

“I would…say or do something stupid because you have the most gorgeous blue eyes, and I can hardly look at them? Fuck. Shit. You’re probably, like, so weirded out...thought I was an asshole, and now you think I’m a creep. I promise, I’m just terrifically weakened by blue eyes, to the point of absolute idiocy.” 

Harry keeps talking, very slowly and awkwardly, with those blushing cheeks, and Louis’s in love with him, probably. He can practically smell Belize and hear wedding bells. “I had no idea,” he says as Carolina whimpers because he stopped petting her. He starts up again. 

“I must seem like one of those desperate, gross guys who hits on pretty baristas because they think that if a girl smiles, she’s interested in them instead of, like, doing her job,” Harry rambles on, sounding ashamed. “I’m truly sorry.” 

“Are you hitting on me?” Louis asks coyly, pretty sure that he’s in total control now. Harry thinks he’s cute. This whole time, Harry didn’t look at him because _he thought that Louis was cute._ He feels invincible. Bone Hotel’s ancient receipt machine finally prints a receipt, and he tears it off triumphantly. 

“I’m not,” Harry tries to argue. “M’just explaining my appalling behaviour. You’re probably straight or married, and I’ll continue leaving you alone from here on out.” 

“If you aren’t hitting on me, then there’s no need to feel like one of those desperate, gross guys,” Louis counters, writing his number down on the receipt before handing it over to Harry, who clutches it tightly in his big, lovely hand. “But you should call me. I’m gay and single, and your dog loves me.”

Then Louis takes Carolina to playgroup, accepting her little doggy kisses the whole way over, heart positively pounding in his chest like a sledgehammer. When he comes back, Harry’s still standing just outside the lobby, bent over his phone and texting like an absolute dork. Louis hopes that he’s texting him, hopes that he’s going to get kisses from Harry tonight or tomorrow or some other time in the foreseeable future, and not just from his dog. 

Harry drives off (not in a Ferrari but in some white vintage thing Louis would know about if he knew anything about cars), and even though it’s against the rules, Louis _has_ to check his mobile because he can _feel_ it buzz in his pocket. He’s expecting the customary first text, something like, _hi, this is harry!_ but instead, he gets,

_Louis, thank you so much for being a gentleman about 1. Carrie knocking everything down (she’s very, very sorry) 2. How awkward I am. I’ve thought you were so handsome for so long, and I’m really only good at flirting when I don’t mean it, and I mean it. Or I would, with you. If I ever flirted. You probably don’t want to go on a date with me now after everything, but know that if you did, I’d be incomprehensibly happy. And buy you a very posh dinner. Let me know how you feel. Cheers, yours, Harry._

Louis has never seen someone sign their text message. He’s also never seen someone take the time to actually type out 1. in a text list. Harry might be an alien, but he’s the cutest, most charming alien ever, so Louis doesn’t care. 

He risks getting fired (or at least a stern talking to) and hammers out, _this text made me incomprehensibly happy and so do you. Such an improvement on wondering if you hated me. Im at work, but after im done, lets plan date time for this posh date._

He hits send and hides his mobile again before his supervisor sees. Then, he spends the rest of his shift daydreaming, planning Carolina’s flower-girl look. 


	4. Braids

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Timestamp for Grenadine Sunshine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the Grenadine Sunshine verse, Louis braiding harry's curls on the beach. Tags: soft, light angst, pining, TXF, canon, Larry.

It brings him back to lonely Friday nights spent at home babysitting his sisters, trying hard to set aside the ache of restlessness while he knew his friends were out drinking, playing footie, chasing girls without him. He became the Louis of tea parties, of Disney singalongs and Bratz dolls soap-opera sagas, of messy French braids and clumsy makeovers. 

Except this time he isn’t lonely, he isn’t restless. Or maybe he is, but it’s a different sort of loneliness, or maybe it’s a different kind of restlessness. The loneliness that comes along with having found the person he thinks he was made to be with forever, only to find out that he’s a silly sixteen-year-old who most likely isn’t ready for forevers. The restlessness that comes with knowing he’ll most likely be waiting a while for Harry to catch up to him, to grow up and into him. 

Louis makes do by braiding Harry’s hair while they sit sun-drenched and golden on a strip of shiny and impossibly hot Spanish beach, watching the other boys throw one another into the surf. 

Harry’s hair is usually soft and oily between Louis’s fingers when he does this, but the salt water has made it sticky, clumped. It’s actually easier to braid this way, easier to section off into chunks and twine. Louis’s careful as he does it, counting the drops of ocean that slide down the column of Harry’s neck, imagining a future where he’s allowed to bend his head and kiss them up.

“Ow,” Harry yelps as Louis’s fingers snag through the curls. “Be gentle.”

“I _am_ , you just keep turning your head. Stay still,” Louis chides, nudging Harry’s sandy thigh with a sandier toe. 

“Are you doing pigtails again?” Harry asks, straightening up, squinting in the sun. “I liked that.” 

“I did a terrible job with those...you’re weird, Harold,” Louis sniffs, even though he had liked them, too, the tiny, ridiculous pigtails jutting out awkwardly from Harry’s head, the hair pulled away from his face so that Harry’s pale, spotty brow could shine in all its teenage glory. There’s nothing about Harry that Louis doesn’t like, doesn’t love. Doesn’t feel driven to protect and possess so viciously that he’s been aching ever since they met. “M’not doing pigtails...m’doing...god, what’s it called? Lottie would know. Something twist, I don’t remember.” 

He chews his lip, carefully working a tangle out of Harry’s salty hair and then smoothing it. He holds his breath because it’s easier than smelling the brine and sunlight on Harry’s skin, the warm boyish wild of him. All the things he can touch, like this, but can’t _have._

“A French twist? I know it’s a thing but dunno what it looks like,” Harry mutters, folding his arms gingerly over his knees, sighing. Then, after a moment, he adds, “Thanks, Lou...for not making fun of me, I mean.” 

Louis’s heart picks up as his mouth goes dry. “I make fun of you all the time.” 

“Well, yeah,” Harry agrees, trailing his fingers through the sand. “But not for this, not for liking to feel pretty. You could, but you don’t.” 

“Course not...it’s not something worth making fun of, it's not something to be _ashamed of,”_ Louis says quickly, fingers nudging up against Harry’s scalp as he deftly sections off more hair for the bottom part of the twist. “Your terrible taste in pizza toppings? Another story.” 

Harry chuckles, curling his toes into the sand, trying to stay steady. “Well, still. S’nice, and I appreciate it.” 

Louis’s eyes sweep down the curve of Harry’s shoulder, and he imagines pressing a strip of kisses across the bone of it. _I appreciate it, too,_ he thinks. Willing to wait and wait, for as long as it takes. 


	5. Flicker

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> written for a prompt asking me to share my head canons on what Zayn and Niall's dynamic is like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: canon, Ziall, angst, smut, sex with feelings, miscommunication, mentions of drug use.

The way that Zayn and Niall are together is not like they are with anyone else. It’s not, like, passion and bruises and sweat and fumbling, which is not to say that it isn’t passionate or that there isn’t bruising or that they aren’t sweat-slicked and lost after it happens because all of that is true. It’s more like the way they arrive there is so much softer and slower than either of them is used to. It doesn’t happen only at night or when they’re high; it can happen in daylight, in the midst of sobriety, after they’ve spent hours talking side by side on a hotel bed, the opener to _Mario Party_ on repeat because they forgot they were going to play, controllers abandoned on the floor like a memory. 

Sometimes talking turns into Zayn crying and Niall’s jumper getting wet, a slick of snot on the shoulder that Niall doesn’t want to wash off even after it dries because it’s evidence that Zayn trusts him, that Zayn breaks open for him. Sometimes Zayn crying turns into Zayn getting silent and still, and sometimes in that silence and stillness, he inches his fingers under Niall’s clothes, flattens his palm out over his heartbeat, and opens his mouth on his pulse, and Niall thinks _finally, finally_ as he rolls over and kisses him. 

Sometimes it’s only kissing; they just snog and snog, and Zayn gets to forget who he is and what’s wrong with him for a little while, gets to lose himself in the slick, insistent heat of Niall’s mouth, and Niall gets to feel all the angles of Zayn’s face with his palms, reminds himself that this is something he’s allowed sometimes, Zayn’s stubble scouring his chin, Zayn’s dark eyes half-lidded and red-rimmed, Zayn tasting like tears instead of smoke. And he wonders if anyone else gets to taste Zayn like this, salt instead of weed. Even if they do, he suspects they don’t even notice, don’t even care, and that thought alone just makes him kiss Zayn harder, deeper. 

They don’t always go further than that, but when they do, it’s slow and tender, with long moments of adjusting careful limbs to make sure that they fit together, that no one is in pain, which neither of them is used to. They both like men who have big, mauling hands, they both like being thrown up against the wall and taken, they both like it to hurt a little, to be left shaky-legged and aching and maybe with a smudge of blood on their thighs. They like to be broken, they both know _how_ to be broken and how to let men break them, but when they’re together, it’s different: it’s strange, quiet, and careful. Niall’s usually the one being fucked when he’s with guys, but he loves fucking Zayn, loves getting him on his back and carefully, carefully folding him in half, pushing into him with so much lube that it’s wet and slick on their bedsheets. He likes to watch Zayn’s mouth fall open and his lashes flutter against his cheeks, dark and private, while he fucks him slowly and deeply and so carefully. 

And Zayn usually likes to be pounded into, likes to drool on the duvet and scrabble to get away only to have whoever’s ruining him grab his hips and pull him back, but with Niall, it’s never like that. It doesn’t sting, it just feels good and full and safe, Niall palming all over his ribs and into his hair, asking him, _Okay? Not too fast? You like that?_ in a soft, slurring voice. Sometimes Zayn wants to get fucked _because_ he wants to be hurt, used, told what to do. Sometimes he forgets that sex can be like this at all, a place where pain or power isn’t even a part of it, where he gets a say in how his body ends up. It’s not always what he wants, but when it is, Niall gives it to him perfectly, hollows him out and makes sure that he comes first. 

Sometimes it’s too weird afterward—he just let _Niall fuck him,_ Niall, his mate, Niall, who he’s known since the beginning of time, who was just a _kid_ when they met—and he has to step into his jeans, buckle them quickly, mumble out some lie, smuggle himself down the hallway, and hope that none of the other boys sees from where he’s leaving. But sometimes he wants to feel cherished a little longer, wants to stay in this space where it doesn’t matter what he does or what he says or how many terrible things he confesses because Niall will listen to him and comb his fingers through his hair and kiss his tattoos and forgive him, will tell him that he’s wonderful. Will love him, even though he should be past the point of love, even though he should be unlovable. 

So he’ll stay, head pillowed on Niall’s narrow chest, fingers threading through the coarse hair there, eyes fluttering closed in time with the steady rise and fall. Or he’ll let Niall roll him onto his back and knead the kinks out, kissing down his spine, nuzzling into the crack of his arse, the back of his knee, so many places that should be unremarkable or forgotten treated with the same careful, tender attentiveness. 

And Niall will be grateful for every second that he has Zayn in his bed, trying to memorize every inch of him, the way he feels because he doesn’t know when it will happen again. _If_ it will happen again. Sometimes Zayn nods off, and Niall will fit himself to his spine, hold him while he dreams, and he’ll think _finally, finally,_ arm looped firmly and possessively around his waist. 


	6. Champagne and Back Rubs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Timestamp for Go Nowhere Tonight, takes place before the story.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: angst, pining, unrequited love, drinking, canon, Larry, 2014.

“Do you…well…I mean…I could give you a massage?” Louis and the champagne he’s been drinking all night offer, and as soon as it leaves his mouth, he feels like the world’s skeeviest best mate. It’s just…Harry’s _always_ complaining about his back, and Louis’s _always_ on the verge of offering help, so his resolve was bound to break at some point. The number of times he’s thought _please, just let me touch you, I’d be so gentle and make you feel so good, just let me, let me_ is probably embarrassing. He’d do a good job, though, really. He’s not an idiot when it comes to anatomy, and his mum never complained when he’d give her back rubs after a long day at the hospital. 

Harry, who’s sprawled out on their couch with his feet bare and his ankles crossed, raises his eyebrows, surprised, before his face softens into something sheepish. “Louis, you don’t have to do that,” he sighs, moving his hand through his hair where it snags at the ends. He dismisses Louis so easily, shaking his head like he couldn’t possibly allow a friend to do something so labourious for him. He is, of course, missing the point that it wouldn’t be labourious for Louis at all. Harry doesn’t know that Louis _lives_ to touch him, to be close to him, to breathe his air. He doesn’t know that there are ulterior motives here, that Louis’s always looking for a way to get his hands on Harry. 

It’s fucked up and creepy, and Louis should probably take the out that Harry offered him immediately, but that’s not what he does. He’s a little tipsy, and they’ve spent the whole evening watching rubbish telly and sitting pressed up close for warmth. They hardly ever get time off like this, just the two of them, and even though it’s technically _their_ flat, it feels weird and foreign for the first few days, like they need to settle into the space after the endless litany of planes and hotel rooms. It feels like home right now, though, or at least Harry does, Harry and champagne and the distant sound of city traffic and a barking dog somewhere outside their compound. 

“No, I _want_ to,” Louis clarifies, an idiot move that’s so sincere it practically gives him and his years-long want away. He swallows thickly and swigs his champagne, adding, “M’not half-bad at massages, Harold.” 

“I’m sure you’re great,” Harry assures him warily, setting his wine glass down on the table with a clink. “I just don’t want you to feel obligated.” 

“I don’t feel obligated. If you don’t want a massage, that’s fine, but–”

Harry makes a sudden, resolved noise and grabs Louis’s wine glass from his hand before downing the contents himself, shivering. Louis feels weak and stunned as he watches him, his lovely chapped lips, his flushed cheeks, the fine sheen of sweat at his temples. “No, no...I want the massage. I’m trying to work on asking for help more and stuff, and you offered so…yeah. Yeah. Where should I lie?” 

Louis’s heart is so suddenly in his throat. “Erm, on the couch I guess? And take your shirt off, I’ll grab some lotion.” 

He can’t find lotion, so he grabs the coconut oil from the kitchen, hands shaking, which is terrible because he can’t touch Harry with shaking hands without revealing that they’re shaking in the first place. He takes some deep breaths and returns to the living room to find Harry face down on the couch with his hair a wreck and his back bare, rib cage expanding with each inhalation. Louis slowly lowers himself into a sitting position next to the couch and coats his fingers with oil. “Where does it hurt worst?” he asks gently, like his voice might shatter something if he’s any louder. 

“Mid-back,” Harry mumbles. “And between m’shoulder blades.” 

Louis holds his breath as he touches Harry, just slicking him up first and feeling him where he’s sore, seeking out what’s tight, where he’s knotted. He has touched Harry so many times, but it’s different when the point of the activity itself is touch, when it’s _beyond_ the idle, the accidental. “This okay?” he whispers, applying some pressure to the long ropes of muscle framing Harry’s spine. _God,_ he loves him so, would love to kiss up his back, would love to massage him every single night until he didn’t hurt anymore. 

“Yeah, s’wonderful,” Harry slurs, breath whining out of him. “Your touch always feels so good.” 

Louis’s heart stops at that, his stomach swoops. It’s a very Harry sort of thing to say, and he could have easily said it about Liam or Nick or someone else, but he didn’t say it about them, he said it about _Louis._ Louis, who has loved him for three years, who has wanted nothing more than for his touch to feel good. “Told you I was basically an expert,” he jokes, but it comes out reedy. 

Harry murmurs wordlessly and says nothing more. 


	7. Jealous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "Wait, are you jealous?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: TXF, canon, baby boyfriends, light angst, light miscommunication, jealous Harry, fluff.

“Wait a minute, are you _jealous_?” Louis asks incredulously, from _Aiden Grimshaw’s_ lap. He’s perched there like a very pretty parakeet, wearing some absurd colourful hat with a spinning thing on top, cheeks flushed and eyes sparkly and every inch of him radiant in a way that Harry can’t survive, can’t look at, _can’t believe_. Louis has been an endless source of improbability in Harry’s life ever since they met, which is at least part of why Harry loves him. It’s only gotten worse since they started snogging behind closed doors, the improbability doubling, _tripling_ , making a mess of Harry and everything he tries to do. 

Which is why it _bothers_ him, really, when Louis’s in other boys’ laps, smooching others boys’ cheeks, even if it’s just to make them yell and shove him off in a fit of giggles. It’s right out in the open when what Harry gets is only behind closed doors, and that disconnect feels like a vice on his heart, makes him question everything about his and Louis’s tentative, unspoken venture into the territory beyond platonic. 

“What?!” Harry snaps, grabbing his own hat, a pointy black witch cap, and chucking it unceremoniously in Louis and Aiden’s direction. “No,” he lies then, pleased that the hat bounces off Aiden’s shoulder as he tries unsuccessfully to dodge the assault. The motion sends Aiden knocking into Louis, who holds him tighter, determined not to be dethroned. Harry _hates_ it, hates every single time Louis touches anyone who isn’t him, particularly Aiden and Zayn, who are both ranked more highly than he ranks himself on his list of Cutest Boys in _TXF_ House. Louis, of course, is at the very top of this list. 

“Dunno, you seem jealous to me,” Aiden grumbles, kicking the witch hat away with his foot and patting his other knee. “There's room for you, too, Harry,” he offers then, which is annoying because that’s _not_ why Harry’s jealous. 

Louis has gotten sort of quiet and peculiarly attentive now, head cocked in his absurd hat, arm looped absentmindedly around Aiden’s neck while he studies Harry. He looks like he’s waiting for something, like he wants Harry to crack and confess his love right here in a crowded room of people all bustling around waiting to film a question time segment. 

Harry glares at him, feelings hurt. He knows he doesn’t own every second of Louis’s attention, but when you’re routinely sucking hickeys into a boy’s neck, you get sort of irritated when that boy’s draped all over other boys, silently goading you into saying something embarrassing. Or at least that’s how Harry feels about the subject. “Whatever, I don’t care what you guys do,” he spits out, shrugging like he doesn’t give every single fuck there is to give in the world. 

“Aw, Hazza,” Louis says then, clambering down from Aiden’s lap without giving him a further look, all his attention suddenly focused on Harry, sharp and acute. Which is what Harry _wanted_ , so he’s not sure why it feels so awful. “What’s wrong?” Louis asks, taking his hat off and wringing it between his hands. 

“Nothing, m’being stupid,” Harry admits, shaking his head, wishing he could just, like, be _happy_ and satisfied with the fact that he gets to _kiss_ Louis, bite his perfect lips, suck on his tongue, and sometimes even feel his bum over his trousers because he’s way too scared to try to get into them. He wishes that he didn’t need to _talk_ about it for it to feel real, that he wasn’t so insecure and soppy. 

“C’mon,” Louis says decisively, tossing his hat aside and hauling Harry up to his feet with his hands jammed under his armpits. “You know how it is, we won’t get everyone together and quiet enough to film for at least twenty minutes. Let’s go.” 

Harry follows Louis dumbly, heart in his throat and palms sweaty as he wrings them together, a mess of regret and anticipation and worry. He really hopes that Louis’s going to kiss him, but he’s also bracing for Louis to tell him that he’s annoying for being such a jealous prick and that he’s never kissing him again. 

But Louis neither kisses him nor tells him that he’s annoying once they’re officially alone together. Instead, he crosses his arms over his chest decisively and asks, “Why does it bother you when I fool around with Aiden or Zayn or whoever? It doesn’t…it doesn’t mean anything.” 

“It doesn’t?” Harry asks quietly, not even bothering to try and deny the jealousy in the first place. Louis sees through him, bare and raw, and there’s nothing he can do about it, not that he’d even _want_ to if he knew how to guard himself. He wants to be stripped for Louis. He wants that. 

“No, m’just messing about. It’s not, like…I mean. You must know, right, that it’s _different_ with you, yeah?” Louis implores, eyes dark and serious under the cut of his brows, lower lip worried between his teeth as he waits for Harry to answer. 

Harry’s stomach flips over, and he shivers, overwhelmed. He wants it to be different, he’s wanted that for so long, but hearing Louis say it makes it feel real. “I didn’t want to assume that you meant anything different by kissing me than you do by sitting in Aiden’s lap or grabbing Zayn’s bum or whatever,” he shrugs. “I didn’t want to get my hopes up.” 

Louis shakes his head, carding a hand nervously through his hair. “Get your hopes up about what?” 

Harry takes a deep breath, flicking his gaze up to the ceiling because if he looks at Louis right now, he’s gonna cry, and that’s embarrassing. “Erm, that you _liked_ me or wanted to…I dunno. Be my boyfriend or something.” 

He flinches because suddenly Louis’s touching him, his gentle, terrified hands on Harry’s waist curling around the padded softness on his hip bones to tug Harry closer. He exhales shakily, and Harry stumbles into it so that he can taste his breath. “I wasn’t sure you wanted that, didn’t want to ask and be wrong, so, like…I just sorta waited. For you to say something. M’sorry if that was confusing or weird for you, or if it felt like I was deliberately trying to keep you guessing…I wasn’t. M’just new at this. And shit at it,” Louis adds. He laughs self-deprecatingly then, and Harry sort of dissolves, fitting himself into Louis’s arms, hiding his face in his hair, trembling all over with a profound wave of relief. 

“Oh, _Louis,_ you aren’t shit at anything, you’re perfect, I’m the one who's been acting like an idiot,” he sniffles, getting his hands in Louis’s hair. “I was jealous, so jealous because I thought I was deluding myself into thinking that I was different from Aiden or whatever. Thought maybe you were snogging him, too—”

“Oh, _god_ , god, no. You’re the only boy I’m snogging, promise,” Louis vows, getting his hands up under Harry’s hoodie, smoothing over his spine. “It’s _definitely_ different with you. Everything’s different.” 

Harry’s so thrilled and moved by this stark confession that he can’t even speak, he can only squeeze Louis so tightly that he forces the breath straight out of him, leaving them both gasping. _Everything’s different_. He can hear the rest of their housemates chattering downstairs, and they should go back, they will go back, but for now, he just wants to be here. Holding Louis so closely that he can feel the thunder of his heartbeat resounding in his own chest like it’s his own heart, their bodies too close to distinguish from one another. “So, you _do_ like me?” he asks, tilting back and catching Louis’s eyes, both of them red-cheeked and grinning. 

“To put it mildly,” Louis says dryly, rolling his eyes before he dips in and kisses Harry hard, and the rest of the world dissolves away, a tide of improbability. 


	8. Snowballs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "don't you dare throw that snowball!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: Ziall, TXF, canon, sexuality confusion, flirting, questioning bi Niall, bi Zayn, fluff.

“Don’t you dare throw that snowba-, goddammit!” Niall bellows, skidding to the side but not quickly enough. The packed ice hits him right in the face, melting down his cheek and into the collar of his jacket, cold and horrible. But because Zayn threw the snowball, he bursts into hysterical cackling laughter even though it hurts; he tends to respond with delight no matter what Zayn’s doing to him, as long as Zayn is the one doing it. Niall is probably cursed. 

“Ouch, sorry, babe, I didn’t mean to actually hit your eye,” Zayn giggles, trotting over to Niall in his snow boots to gently, sweetly wipe the snow off his face with gloved fingers. Everything Zayn does is gentle and sweet, except when it's not, and this should be a paradox, but it’s just a confusing fact of Niall’s life. He’s never fancied a boy before, but he’s also never seen one as pretty and cool and quietly funny as Zayn. Zayn, who calls everyone babe and smokes weed out of an honest-to-god _bong_ instead of rolling blunts like everyone else Niall has ever met. Zayn, who gets frustrated and broody and storms off when something goes wrong during rehearsal but always comes back, shaking his head self-deprecatingly, hooking his arms around the other lads’ necks and murmuring sheepish apologies. Zayn is some sort of mystery, and everyone—the other boys and the fans and the men in suits—all seem to just accept this, but not Niall. He’s a detective. He wants to crack this mystery and see what’s underneath because he knows it’s gonna be wonderful. 

“You nearly blinded me, mate,” Niall says through weak, wheezing laughter as Zayn cleans him up. “Practically took me eye out.” 

“I can’t help that I have lethal aim, m’just a master of the snowball. The snowball is my bitch,” Zayn mumbles, deadpan, and Niall can’t help it, he cracks up all over again. Zayn looks so pretty in the snow, his eyes so dark and twinkly and wet-looking, the lashes clotted together and his cheeks pink. Niall wants to kiss him, and he sort of lets himself feel it. 

He’d been fighting it for weeks, from auditions to the whole time they were at Harry’s bungalow to the trip to Spain, all the way through most of the competition, really. It’s only been since winter, when they started snuggling on the couch together after dinner to play _Grand Theft Auto,_ and Zayn started pelting him with snowballs every single time they went outside that he just…quit fighting. Admitted that he probably has a crush on a boy for the first time, that he wants to kiss this boy, that there’s nothing to be ashamed of. 

He stealthily, slowly, sneakily reaches behind himself and scoops a palmful of snow off the car parked on the drive. Then, before Zayn realizes what he’s doing, he claps his mitten down on his head, rubbing the white powder into Zayn’s dark, shiny hair, hiccuping with laughter. 

Zayn gasps and shoves Niall, who promptly shoves him back, and within seconds, they’re toppling over and grappling on the ground, rolling around in the snow. Niall rapidly pins Zayn under him, and because Zayn isn’t much of a fighter or all that strong, he just sort of goes limp under Niall, giggling. “Pinned ya again,” Niall announces, certainly not above quoting _The Lion King_. 

“I think that’s how Louis seduced Harold,” Zayn quips. “Disney movie references.” 

“Shhhh, _The Lion King_ is a classic, don’t insult perfection,” Niall chides, thrilled that Zayn brought up seduction, even as a joke. 

Zayn sticks his tongue out, which only makes Niall think about snogging him even more. He wonders if Zayn would mind, if he’d be up for a casual, friendly snog with his mate in the snow. After all, he _knows_ Zayn likes boys, he’s known since the bungalow, back when Harry and Louis started hooking up, and he told Zayn, _I reckon they’re the first gay guys I’ve ever met,_ and Zayn shrugged and said, _Yeah, them and me._ It had shocked Niall, made him reel back in surprise because Zayn…Zayn wasn’t like Harry and Louis, Zayn talked about all the girls at home he’d slept with, his favourite sex positions, the time he forgot to use protection and brought the girl to get the morning-after pill the next day and felt so guilty and horrible that he always brings, like, ten condoms everywhere he goes now. 

Niall was under the impression that Zayn was, like, a _lady kille_ r, but here he was, saying that he was _gay._ It had been too much for Niall to process and be polite about, so he blurted out, _You? You’re gay?_ and again, Zayn had shrugged. _Well, not gay, necessarily, but I’ve shagged plenty of lads. I’ll shag anyone who’s fit and down to shag, boy, girl, in between. People are people, mate,_ he’d explained, taking a hit off his bong, and _wow_. Niall’s whole world was blown. Zayn had shagged lads, and there were people in between boys and girls, and everything that Niall had ever grappled with—all his moderately confusing trysts watching gay porn and not being totally turned off by it but still fancying girls far too much to ever think that he was gay—suddenly seemed normal, plausible. Like there were grey areas that he’d never considered before. 

“You’re still sitting on me,” Zayn observes, lifting his hips minimally, not enough to displace Niall but enough to shift him, to create friction. Niall grinds back down flirtily because flirting with boys is a thing that you can do. The universe is full of possibilities. “I can’t breathe.” 

“Nah, I think you like it,” Niall says, wiggling. “A little cold but content...that’s the vibe you’re putting out.” 

“I didn’t say I didn’t like it, just that I couldn’t _breathe_ ,” Zayn clarifies. “Move, like, off my rib cage, and we’re good.” 

Niall wiggles down so that he’s straddling Zayn’s hips, which means their _pricks_ are, like, two fabric barriers and several inches apart, which is very exciting. “Better?” he asks, sort of breathless. 

Zayn looks up at him with twinkly eyes, with pink cheeks, and Niall’s stomach swoops. “Yeah,” he grins. “Better.” 


	9. escape from the city/follow the sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry takes Louis to his favorite hiking spot. It may or may not be haunted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this for fun, and it's the only think in this collection that could stand alone as its own story, but I just don't know where to put it. Its one of my favorite things I've ever written though, I loved the melancholy tone. Tags: canon, present day, 2018 Larry, hiking, introspection, light drug use, domesticity, softness.

Harry drives and keeps driving, and Louis watches the houses get smaller and older and stranger, little slant-roofed things from the 1930s stacked on an incline, blue and lavender and yellow like dyed eggs. There are gardens, the sort with weeds and sun-faded gnomes, and Louis has to keep reminding himself where they are because it almost feels like Yorkshire, in certain moments. Perhaps because there’s so much green, but then a palm tree will jar him back to the reality of LA. Or not LA, exactly, but one of the millions of suburbs surrounding it, nerves branching out from a central nervous system. 

Harry comes here a lot to hike, and Louis hates hiking, but he loves Harry, so here he is, too. In last year’s designer trainers and denim cutoffs and a hoodie, smoking his hastily rolled joint out the window because he’s not gonna bring something flammable out on the trail, but addictions are addictions, and he requires such things to soothe the ache of living in a different world. 

It’s an after-rain sort of day, where everything’s too bright and constantly moving, the sky shifting from radiant blue to streaked-in-white clouds to grey, like it might storm again. The dirty city feels clean on days like this, and Louis doesn’t want to miss it, somehow, so he isn’t wearing the sunglasses he brought along, even though he has to squint in the hyper-bright glare. Harry hums along to Kendrick, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel, and still they ascend up a seemingly endless hill. 

“Are we there yet?” Louis asks after he blows a tendril of smoke out the cracked window, and Harry takes a moment before he says anything, moving his hand to Louis’s thigh and squeezing gently, as if this touch is an answer, a language spelled out on his fingertips. Louis settles into it, skin warm under the weight of Harry’s palm. 

“Almost,” he mumbles eventually. “We’re gonna keep driving till this road ends, basically, and then park. Should be easy because no one is up here on weekdays. There’s street parking, even, you don’t have to pay.” And in this meandering sentence are so many answers to questions that Louis didn’t ask because this is the way that Harry talks. Like something spilling drop by drop, one after the other, and Louis has to collect all the drops in his palms, reassemble them into a whole. 

“No one’s gonna break into our car, yeah? I dunno about a Range Rover in this neighbourhood,” Louis muses, but Harry snorts, shaking his head. 

“This neighbourhood? No one but old ladies and families lives up here,” he assures him. “Car’s safe. _We’re_ safe…trust me, I come up here, like, twice a week sometimes, and I’ve never been recognized. Sometimes I don’t even see another living person at all.” 

“Another living person?” Louis repeats, tapping ash out onto the road as it flashes past them. They make it to the very, very top of the hill, finally, and Harry turns left onto a residential street to park. 

“Apparently haunted, these woods,” Harry explains, raising his eyebrows into two delicate arcs as he looks at Louis and kills the engine. His hair’s in a weird, tousled in-between state, sticking up in several places and escaping from the jaw clip he’s using to hold it back, curly and unruly and mussed from having been slept on. His stubble is growing in like it always does, uneven and soft like a teenager’s, and he’s terribly unglamourous right now, not a star but a boy, with wind-chap and blemishes on his skin, nothing observably special about him, just softness. Louis aches to touch him, to push a hand through that hair and ask about the ghosts. Then he remembers that he can, that they’re in the middle of nowhere, that the windows are tinted. 

So with trembling fingers, he smooths a flyaway behind Harry’s ear gently before saying, “Haunted? Ever see any ghosts? Do they ever come up to you, all translucent and shite, and say, _Oi, aren’t you Harry Styles? Can I have a picture, mate?_ Or do they just sorta float around?” 

Harry laughs like Louis’s hilarious, which is hilarious in and of itself because he’s _not_ , at least not right now, not when he’s a quiet, contemplative sort of stoned and half on his guard because they’re out in the world without security, without a cover. “Nah, they’re not those sorts of ghosts, Lou. Not, like, proper ghosts. They’re just…s’like, sometimes you feel like you're not alone.” Louis’s eyes get wide, and he’s about to give Harry a hard time, but Harry must realize how awful that sounds, so he shakes his head preemptively, making more hair fall out of the clip in an oily mess. “No, not like…in a creepy way. Just, like. You’re both sort of sitting in nature not wanting to be seen, and that’s good.” 

“You’re so weird,” Louis says fondly, shaking his head and tucking his sunnies into his pocket. “I agreed to hike with you because you said we would be totally alone, no fans, no strangers. Didn’t know I had to stipulate no ghosts.” 

“They’ll leave you alone,” Harry promises, leaning in and kissing Louis’s temple, then his cheek, and finally his shoulder, forming his own three-star constellation, Orion’s belt but shaped by his lips. “I didn’t notice them until I had been coming here for awhile. They’re shy, I suppose.” 

“O-kay,” Louis chuckles, still not entirely sure if Harry’s being honest, or if this is some extended joke; Harry’s humour is offbeat and dark and ill-timed enough that Louis isn’t certain he’s being funny until Harry _tells_ him that he is, eyes glinting and a half-smile curling the corner of his lips. He loves puns and absurdity and stripping in the middle of a party for the sake of a joke, too, but Louis gets to see other sides of his humour, the dry edge, the ghosts that may or may not be real. He rubs the place that Harry has just grazed on his shoulder and shrugs. “Alright, let's go, love.” 

It’s LA-chilly and sun-bright outside, so Louis blinks and sidles closer to Harry, following him along a sandy stretch of sidewalk toward a massive wrought-iron gate with spikes and filigree. “Looks like it’s locked,” Louis frowns, furrowing his brow, and Harry shakes his head. 

“Gate’s always locked, but there are a million trailheads you can get to without going through it…s’more for decoration, maybe. We’ll go up here,” he says, gesturing to a steep set of maybe-stairs carved into the brushy hillside like something from an Indiana Jones movie. 

Louis stares before he scoffs, raising his eyebrows as he surveys the incline. “Are we really going up there? Is that even legal? Doesn’t look like a proper trail, if m’honest.” 

Harry laughs. “It’s not _illegal,_ Lou. S’just sort of an unofficial trail, so it’s not maintained all that well. But it leads to one of my favourite places in the entire world, and I want to take you there, obviously, so let's go.” 

Harry’s the one who knows things about hiking, so Louis opts to trust him, even if he’s skeptical, even if the “steps” on this trail are rocks and worn railroad ties embedded haphazardly in the hillside at odd intervals. Louis’s out of breath after ascending the first few, and he can’t even see the top of the thing they’re climbing, but he just keeps going, watching Harry’s back as he climbs ahead of him, sweat darkening the white of his shirt between his rounded shoulder blades. 

He thinks he’s fine, that the dizziness is just because of altitude or the weed he smoked earlier. But as the hillside gets steeper and steeper, and footholds are harder and harder to come by, he sort of just freezes, reaching out in front of himself to brace his body on the incline. 

“Haz...Hazza...m’stuck,” he gets out, voice wobbly. Louis isn’t afraid of heights, or at least he never has been, but this doesn’t even feel like fear, necessarily. He just can’t move _forward_ , legs unsteady and knees locked, hands grabbing for clumps of vegetation along the trail, so that if he slips, he’ll at least have something to hold onto. He’s surrounded by sharp angles covered in loose, gravelly dirt, and he can’t imagine putting his feet on any of it without slipping, so he just stays put, sweat stinging his eyes at he peers up at Harry, furrowed brow telegraphing, _look what you got us into_.

Harry, who’s possibly the clumsiest and most uncoordinated human alive, is just standing upright on the hillside like a fucking mountain goat, looking at Louis with wide, unconcerned eyes. “Are you serious?” 

“Yes, I’m serious! M’dizzy, and I can’t move. And we have, like, way more to go,” he whines. “I don’t go hiking all the time. M’a treadmill man...my ankles are weak.” 

“Your ankles are perfect,” Harry tells him, squatting down so that he’s at Louis’s eye level, surveying the terrain. “Just...don’t look ahead and definitely don’t look behind you. Put your left foot…no, your left, babe…yeah, right there. Like, a little ahead and to the side,” Harry advises, his voice slow and even and comforting, a voice like home, like waves on the shore. Louis latches onto that steadiness and shakily advances, and together they climb, until finally, _finally_ the trail starts to flatten out. 

Louis stumbles upright and straightens his back, feeling lightheaded but alive, which is good. “You alright?” Harry asks gently, laying a hand on each of Louis’s shoulders and regarding him point blank. A breeze whistles by them, mussing his hair, and it smells like the ocean. 

Yes, Louis’s alright. 

“M’fine, mostly _astounded_ that you’ve been doing this hike and’ve come home _unscathed_ every time. You just scuttled on up here like it was nothing at all, and I’ve seen you fall down flights of stairs in our own home because your socks were too slippery,” Louis marvels, still a bit unsteady and vertigo-sick and sort of wheezing, out of breath. “M’impressed.” 

Harry smiles, sliding his hands down Louis’s arms to tuck his thumbs into his elbows, soft and intimate, joined at this place where blood pounds. “I sort of came up on my hands and knees the first few times, and I had to stop and catch my breath constantly. Like, I was way more pathetic than you...I figured since you were generally more graceful, it wouldn’t be a problem? S’only gotten easy because I do it so much. I know where to step, sort of forgot how scary it could be, if m’honest.” He grins then, teeth white and pretty, so much so that Louis wishes he could reach up and thumb across them, but his hands are dirty from clawing up a hillside and holding on for dear life. “Can you look now? At the view, or are you gonna faint?” 

Louis turns to look, and if he thought he was okay, he’s wrong because he very nearly does faint. They’re so high up that the homes below seem like dollhouses, neat little rows with their crystal pools and green gardens glittering like sapphires, like emeralds. Further beyond that is a splay of urban sprawl, a network of streets clogged in crawling traffic, all centered around downtown LA. It’s close enough that Louis can make out the individual buildings, even if he can’t name them, but far enough away that he’s stunned by how _big_ California is, even if he thought he got over that years ago. “Wow,” he breathes, shielding his eyes against the sun to stare into the nervy-blue brightness. “And there…that’s the sea, yeah?” he asks, gesturing to a strip of gold-like molten glass, far off in the distance beyond the city. 

“Yeah…great day for it, too, I can’t always see it. Too much smog. The sea came out just for you, love,” Harry murmurs, so close that his breath whispers up against Louis’s pulse, the whole of him smelling like salt and sun and earth. 

Louis flinches. And he hates himself for doing it; all of him wants to be close to Harry all the time, but there’s a reflex built into him from years of being reprimanded every time that want showed, that it seeped through his carefully sewn seams. If Harry notices, he doesn’t say anything about it, but he does soften up a bit and step into Louis’s space like he’s meant to be there, and Louis opens his arms for him. “You’re not helping with my dizziness,” Louis admonishes lightly, quietly, like it’s a secret. Even though it doesn’t have to be a secret here, with miles of wilderness stretching out on either side of them but not a single human witnesses to the way that Harry’s hands gently cup Louis’s face, draw him closer. 

They aren’t stars, not right now, just two boys with dirty hands. It feels weird. It feels good. Louis closes his eyes. 

“Kiss me,” Harry says, licking his lips. “Snog me right here, out in the open. While LA watches.” 

His breath smells like coffee and home, like all of Louis’s best memories and the worst ones, too. Through every bad trip and every sleepless night and every time they thought the pressure was too much to withstand, Harry was there, bright green eyes that Louis has seen red-rimmed and pain-sick and coke-pupil-black too many times to count. But it doesn’t matter now, not anymore, not when the band is indefinitely set on hold, they’re on holiday more often than not, and finally, _finally_ they can breathe a bit. Harry’s still here, so Louis makes fists in his clingy white shirt and kisses him. 

He tastes like coffee and home, like all of Louis’s best memories and the worst ones, too. Like Louis’s whole strange, messy past and his whole uncharted future, bright like the honey-shine slip of sea along the horizon, the one that’s watching them quietly and far away, without judgment. 

There’s salt on Louis’s upper lip when he pulls away breathless from Harry’s kiss, sweat on his thumbs from where they smoothed the little curls around Harry’s ears. “That was quite weird,” he says, blinking and grinning and feeling sort of lost in the wide, dark glimmer of Harry’s pupils, the place there the darkness meets the green. 

“Weird?!” Harry yelps, giggling, letting go of Louis’s face to dig his fingers into his sides where his skin is still hot from the exertion of hiking up that evil hill. “You kiss me every day. Sometimes more than once,” he tacks on, a joke. 

Louis laughs, rolls his eyes, and feels giddy and wild because they’re _outside_ , outside where anyone could see them, if there was anyone to see. 

“Weird because it’s, like, windy and sunny, and we’re...exposed. Like, starkers. Makes me feel drunk,” he admits, shaking his head, and Harry’s smile softens. 

“S’why I brought you here. I come because no one can see me, and I feel…invisible, sometimes, but also the _most_ seen, if that makes sense? Like the whole world is watching the real me, not the fake one,” he explains, stumbling away from Louis and off the trail a bit, into the brush. 

“Very eloquent,” Louis jokes, voice getting half-lost in the breeze, but he _does_ know, he does understand. He feels terrified here, at the top of the world, with his chest split open and his boy’s spit on his lips, but at the same time he feels wonderful, invincible, like nothing can touch him. “Where are we going?” 

“To a clearing…s’where I like to sit down, over here,” Harry gestures, crossing his long legs and sinking to the ground, which is all packed earth and brush flattened out from his body presumably crushing it time after time. He pats the vacancy next to him, and Louis’s startled to know that Harry can still surprise him, even after years of knowing him inside out. 

“You…just sit like that, on the dirt?” he asks, gingerly sitting, looking around for, like…bugs or deer shit or something gross. “You don’t even bring a towel like a proper posh boy?” 

“No, I wanna feel the dirt. I think about it, like, I just sit here and think about everything under me’bum. The roots and the rocks and the dead things that rot and make food for stuff to grow, all right here beneath me while I look at the city. It makes me feel small but, like, in a good way.” 

Louis nods silently, inching closer to Harry so that their thighs are pressed together, eyes fixed on the glow of the sea. “Yeah,” he says. “I get it. I mean, still think you’re weird, but I get it.” 

They sit in silence until they lie down, and Louis knows there’s, like, grass bits in his hair, but he can’t care much, not with the way Harry’s so close to him, not with the way that his hand is resting on his boy’s chest and playing with his nipple through the fabric of his hoodie, this idle, intimate thing that the sun’s witnessing, silent and judgment fee, because the sun doesn’t care who they are, what they’ve done. The rocks and the roots and the dead things don’t care. They just are. “Can you feel any ghosts right now?” Louis asks, voice nothing but a murmur as he presses his lips into Harry’s unwashed mess of hair, inhaling him, eyes shut tight as the sun shifts to burn down upon them. 

“Nu-uh,” Harry answers, kissing Louis’s pulse, his jaw. “We’re all alone. You alright? I know it’s sort of a strange feeling, the first time.” 

And Louis feels Harry’s spine, the curve of his lower back, the solidity of him right here under his palms, touching where anyone could see but no one will. And it feels so _good_ after years of being picked apart, hurt because no one knew that they really were together, but at the same time, _everyone knew_ , forever scrutinizing and twisting and digesting and destroying what was sacred about it, infecting their private life. It feels impossible, now, that they have the time and ability to slip away, climb a mountain, and kiss right here out in the open. But here they are. And Louis very nearly fainted, his heart very nearly stopped, but here they are. Seen and unseen. 

Yes, Louis is alright. 

\---


	10. Caught

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt, "Is there a reason you're in my bed?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: canon, Larry, TXF house, first time, flirting, masturbation.

“Is there a reason why you’re naked in my bed?” someone asks, and Harry blinks with sticky eyes, their wreck of a room in _The X Factor_ house slowly coming into focus around him. “I mean, not that I _mind_ , but, like…m’not sure if you’re trying to tell me something or not, mate.” 

_Shit._ It’s Louis, who’s standing over his own bed with his arms crossed and a devilish grin on his face, looking down at Harry, who’s absolutely guilty as charged. 

“You weren’t supposed to be back until the evening,” Harry says groggily, pulling Louis’s sheets up to his chin in self-conscious fistfuls. Louis went on a Tesco run with the other boys, and Harry stayed behind under the guise of flirting with Cher, who’s secretly gay and crushing on someone else in the house, too, just like he is. They’re each other’s perfect covers, or they were until Harry overslept and fucked up his flimsy veneer of secrecy where Louis’s concerned. 

“Well, hate to break it to you, but it’s after dark, Harold,” Louis teases, reaching out and ruffling Harry’s curls, making Harry’s brain short-circuit because he generally can’t tolerate being touched by Louis when he’s _naked. “_ Is that just, like, what you _do_ when m’gone? Get naked and crawl into me bed?” 

Harry thinks he means it as a joke, but unfortunately it’s the truth. He _does_ get into Louis’s bed when he’s gone, and more often than not, it’s without clothing. It’s not to do anything _weird,_ like jack off, necessarily….it’s because he loves Louis’s smell, loves the feel of his sheets on his skin; it’s easier to fall asleep if he can imagine that he’s spooning or getting spooned by Louis, and those are easier things to imagine when he can inhale from Louis’s pillow. It started out as a nap technique, but it clearly evolved into a fucking problem. “Erm…your bed is cozier?” he tries.

Louis raises an eyebrow. “So…you weren’t wanking?” 

Harry _wasn’t,_ but he has a semi now, thanks to Louis implicating his prick. It’s not his fault. “No,” he says, and it sounds like a lie even if it’s not. 

“You’re sure this isn’t because you, like…have some sort of crush on me?” Louis asks then, and _fuck,_ god, all of Harry’s fake dates with Cher, where they just locked themselves in her room’s ensuite to talk about Louis and Katie and how gay they are for them, don’t even _matter_ because Louis _knows._ Harry heats up spectacularly, blushing, and if Louis didn’t know before, he _certainly_ does now.

“Erm…what would you say if I did?” he stammers. Maybe Louis won’t care, maybe this _won’t actually ruin their friendship._ Maybe Louis will just brush it off, and they can carry on as best mates and never talk about this again. 

“I wouldn’t say anything,” Louis answers quietly, looking down and sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes fixed on the ground before they flick fleetingly up to Harry, just for a moment. “I’d just crawl over there and snog you.” 

Harry stares, blinking. He’d be sure Louis was joking if there wasn’t a waver in his voice, a crack in his confidence that lets Harry see the stitching, the blood. “Really?” he squeaks, still stuck knee-deep in disbelief, unable to move forward until Louis _proves_ it, says it plainly. 

“Erm, _yeah._ If you’d…if it were that sort of crush. Where you’d want to snog me,” Louis clarifies, shrugging before he adds, “Theoretically.” 

“Louis, I crawl naked into your bed when you’re away,” Harry says, taking a deep breath. “I want to snog you. It’s on a long, long list of other stuff I want to do to you, too,” he confesses. 

Louis gets pink and exhales, the tension leaving his body in a wave as he turns to Harry, getting on all fours and clambering across his bunk with Harry’s prone body trapped between his knees. “Christ,” he sighs, shaking his head. “Finally,” and then he bends down and catches Harry’s mouth, lips hot and slick and so fucking perfect that Harry whites out and groans under him, hungry for more, for everything. Louis pulls away then, just enough to murmur, “You can tell me about that list, but let's start with snogging, yeah?” 

Harry licks his lips, and nods. “Yeah.” 

\---


	11. Pub Kisses

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Written for the prompt "I almost lost you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tags: AU, first date, first time, misunderstandings, humor, drinking, Larry.

“I almost lost you,” Harry says breathlessly, shouldering his way alongside Louis into the long, winding queue for the toilets at the pub they’re in. “Hi,” he adds, grinning cheekily and taking a sip of his pint before wiping his big, lovely mouth on the back of his hand. 

The three guys who were behind Louis grumble, and Louis shoots them an apologetic look. “Harold,” he snaps, “do you really have to accompany me to the _loo_?” The thing is, he’s been _trying_ to lose Harry Styles all night. He thought the toilets would be a good place to do it because what guy follows another guy into the _toilets_? Harry Styles, apparently, very, very dangerous Harry Styles, Zayn’s pretty new roommate and exactly Louis’s type and _exactly_ the sort of straight hipster idiot known to break Louis’s heart. He needs to get _away_ from Harry Styles, lest he fall in love with him and end up a sad, self-deprecating pulp on this lager-sticky floor. 

“Well, I didn’t want to just sit there with Niall and Liam and Zayn and Oli and the rest without you,” Harry explains like that’s actually a reasonable explanation. “It was too much _lad_ energy,” he adds, using his free hand to wiggle his fingers mysteriously in the air, like he’s casting some lad-repelling spell. 

Louis rolls his eyes. “What’s wrong with the lads?” he asks, as if he doesn’t get similarly annoyed when he goes out with them. Even if Harry isn’t gay at all and is just a silly hipster with long hair, skinny jeans, and an amazing Miley Cyrus impression during karaoke, his presence _is_ a comforting one amid the general, unrelenting laddishness that Louis was forced to deal with before Harry moved in with Zayn. It would be nice, really, to have a decent ally, if he wasn’t also paralyzingly attracted to him. Harry makes it so _hard_ , always following him around and buying him drinks and putting his hands all over his thighs the drunker he gets. It’s so fucking frustrating; he probably doesn’t even _realize_ that he’s being flirty or confusing. 

“Oh, you know,” Harry elaborates, taking another swig of his lager. “They’re all just so, _Rahhh, rahhh, yeah! Shots!! Footie!! Women!!_ all the time _,_ ” he very eloquently explains. The bloke in the stall closest to Louis shoulders his way out, giving Louis a sense of relief for the opportunity to escape, so he very nearly misses it when Harry adds, “I just hate hanging out with straight guys for any prolonged period of time.” 

“Wait, _what?_!” Louis asks, struck dumb and silent, Vans quite suddenly rooted to the floor. 

Harry turns to the man behind him and graciously offers him the rest of his pint, grinning and saying, “Here, mate, you can polish this off,” before turning to Louis, taking one of his shoulders in each hand, steering him into the loo stall, and deliberately latching the door behind them. “Finally,” he breathes, rubbing his hands up the front of Louis’s soft camel jumper. “You’ve been driving me mad all night.” 

Louis can’t breathe. He must have had too much to drink, he must have taken something he didn’t realize he took, he must be ascending into an alternate plane of existence because he thinks that Harry’s planning to _snog him_ , and in no universe did he see _that_ coming. “Wait, wait, wait,” he says breathlessly, hands fluttering reflexively to Harry’s soft hair, his broad shoulder, under the collar of his button-up silky black shirt, which, in retrospect, is a pretty gay shirt to wear to a pub. “ _I’ve_ been driving _you_ mad?” 

“Yes, obviously,” Harry murmurs, dipping closer, pressing his sweat-damp brow to Louis’s and huffing nervous, beer-frothy breath out onto his mouth. Louis practically drools, he wants to kiss him so badly. “I…that’s okay, yeah? I didn’t misread…fuck. Wouldn’t be the first time I thought a straight guy was flirting with me,” Harry babbles, starting to waver and pull away, but Louis catches him, makes a plaintive wordless sound in his throat, and grabs a fistful of Harry’s shirt, pulling him in. 

“Not straight, definitely not straight, I thought _you_ were straight,” he laughs, shaking his head in delighted disbelief. “M’just trying to catch up.”

“You thought _I_ was straight?” Harry giggles, smiling so huge and lovely, flipping his hair from one shoulder to the other and rolling his eyes to the ceiling self-deprecatingly, dimples so sweet and lovely. “I don’t think anyone has ever thought that before.” 

“Well, I’m not the only one, Zayn thought so, too! He told me not to fall in love with you because he was pretty sure that you weren’t like us…Zayn and I have a habit of assuming every hot guy is straight, though, saves us the misery of having to find out when we’re already neck-deep,” Louis explains, rubbing his hands carefully up Harry’s toned arms to the loose, open neck of his shirt, which is really more of a _blouse,_ he realizes, now that he’s touching it, pushing nervous, hungry fingers under the fabric to touch Harry’s dewy skin. God, he’s so fucking fit, and Louis wants to get his mouth all over every inch of him. “M’already neck-deep, though, luckily for you.” 

“Fuck, can’t wait anymore,” Harry whines low in his throat, licking his soft, plush lips. “Can I kiss you? M’always wanting to kiss you...haven’t been able to think of anything else since we met.” 

Louis nods his head once before craning his neck up away from the wall and catching Harry’s mouth in his, groaning at the perfect, burning taste of him, at the way Harry doesn’t waste any time opening up and getting his tongue into Louis’s mouth. It’s greedy and messy and so, so good, and Louis wants to _fuck_ Harry Styles, but he doesn’t want to do it in a filthy pub bathroom, he’s not an _animal_. 

They snog for a few heated, feverish minutes, Harry’s big hands moving up under Louis’s jumper and then down to his arse, where he keeps grabbing and mauling and pulling Louis apart, making him feel _insane_. Fuck. Louis’s achingly hard, and he’s gonna break his No Public Sex rule if they keep it up. “Harry, Harry,” he whimpers, getting his mouth on the shell of Harry’s ear and nuzzling into his hair. “I really, really want to fuck you, but I don’t wanna do it in this pub.” 

“You want…can we ditch the lads?” Harry asks, totally, unabashedly humping Louis’s leg like a dog. It shouldn’t be hot, but it _is_ , and Louis’s totally beside himself with want, he doesn’t _care_ what Harry does as long as he does it to him. “Want you so badly, and m’flat’s empty since Zayn’s here…let’s sneak out the back, yeah? Uber?” 

Louis nods frantically, kissing down Harry’s face, fast and messy. “We can most definitely ditch the lads.” 

And then, as he calls an Uber with shaking fingers, he thinks that he’s never been so happy to be wrong about someone in his life.


	12. Never Have I Ever (loved someone like I love you)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry and Louis playing drinking games in TXF house.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a fun little X factor thing I wrote as a writing exercise! Tags: larry, canon, TXF, light angst, fluff, baby boyfriends, drinking, mentions of past sex with girls.

They’re all playing a game in _The X Factor_ living room, some mess that’s half Never Have I Ever and half beer pong, only there’s no beer, just the world’s worst and cheapest prosecco, and Louis’s fingers are sticky with it because he’s _drunk_ and he can’t stop touching Harry’s mouth. 

Harry doesn’t mind. He’s all flushed cheeks and eyes like sea glass, bits of Heineken bottle beaten to smoothness by waves. He just tilts into Louis’s every touch, sinking into his side and smiling those fucking radioactive smiles from beneath his lashes. They’re sweet, loaded smiles, _private_ smiles that whisper about all the things they’ve done behind closed doors, fumbling hands and open mouths, the entirety of it so hot that it doesn’t matter how clumsy they are, how little they know what they’re doing.

The flash of Harry’s teeth goes straight to Louis’s gut, turns him to butterflies, and he _has_ to touch Harry’s lips because Harry keeps _licking them._ He’s tipsy and unbearable, and Louis loves him so _much_ that he's dizzy with it, dumb with it. So dumb with it that he keeps forgetting there are other people in the room.

“ _Louis,”_ Cher sighs in exasperation, flicking the back of his neck. “It’s your turn. Quit messing about...answer the question or take a drink!” 

Louis swallows thickly, tilting back in Cher’s lap to slur, “Sorry, babe, what was the question again?” because he can’t remember hearing anything but Harry’s laugh, Harry’s indignant protests whenever Matt gives him a hard time about being a lightweight. 

Liam pipes up, irritatingly sober because _apparently_ he only has one kidney and _apparently_ he can’t drink, not even _champagne._ Louis’s about to nudge Harry in the ribs to share a joke about this when Liam reminds him, “How many times have you fingered a girl?” 

Louis’s cheeks get hot, and he wrinkles his nose. He doesn’t like the way the word _fingered_ sounds in Liam’s voice, and on top of that, he doesn’t want to answer the question, doesn’t want to really _remember_ the times he’d touched Hannah like that enough to actually _count_ them. They weren’t horrible or anything, it’s just that everything about his relationship with Hannah was a failed experiment, and he knows that now. He doesn’t want to think about the things he did to prove to himself that he could, not when he’s fallen in love with Harry, and none of what happened before matters at this point. 

He forgets that he doesn’t have to answer, though, forgets the champagne entirely and waves one of his hands in the air limp-wristedly, shaking his fringe from his eyes. “God, I dunno, like…five? A handful?” he shrugs. “S’that something people _count up the times of?”_

“A handful,” Zayn repeats quietly from the couch, where he’s sandwiched between two halves of Bellamie. “No pun intended?” 

Everyone snorts with laughter, and Louis cuts his gaze to Harry, not knowing how to _keep_ from looking, from getting dragged back into that brilliant gravitational pull. He wants to see if Harry’s laughing, too, wants to hear the low, lovely rumble of it. 

But he goes kind of deaf when he sees Harry’s face. He’s smiling, but it’s different, _wrong._ Forced and tight around the corners of his mouth, more of a sheepish half-twist of his lips than anything else, and it doesn’t meet his eyes, doesn’t even come close. Harry’s transparent to begin with, and Louis does nothing but study him, so he seizes up right away, shoulders going tense because it didn’t even _occur_ to him that Harry might not want to hear about all the times he’s fingered girls. Because Harry doesn’t—couldn’t—know that they didn’t really _matter._ That everything he ever did with Hannah seems like some strange play he was acting in, fading into something half-forgotten and obsolete.Louis sits up, suddenly queasy as he sways into Harry. 

He sticks a finger in Harry’s dimple. “Hey, don’t...you shouldn’t worry,” he slurs in a hush, lips brushing the shell of Harry’s ear as he dips too close. “Was’nothing,” he mumbles, nudging against Harry’s rib cage, making fists in the air, and doing a small, clumsy dance to demonstrate how completely _insignificant_ all his drunken, experimental fumbling with Hannah had been, how wildly they paled in comparison to the maddening flash-flood of falling in love with Harry. “Happy days now,” he adds. 

Harry smiles at him again, weak and watery and not very reassuring. “I know,” he sighs, sneaking his hand onto Louis’s thigh for a hot, fleeting second and squeezing. “It’s fine.” He sounds more sober than Louis thought he was, more sober than Louis, certainly. 

Louis pouts and then shrugs because it’s _not_ fine, not really, but they’ll talk about it later. Right now, he’s drunk, and they’re in the middle of this stupid game, surrounded by people, only a handful of whom _really_ know about them, about what’s going on when no one’s looking. Louis settles for licking champagne off his index finger before brushing it across Harry’s lips, the spit-damp and chewed pinkness of them soft against his skin. Harry’s eyes flicker in surprise, and then he’s smiling again, _really_ smiling, gut-churning and life-changing and sweet and loaded and _private,_ just how it should be, so Louis feels better. They’ll talk about it later. 


	13. Private Tent

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Louis and Harry talk about Leeds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was gonna do a longer Leeds fic someday but its never gonna happen so here's the beginning! Tags: canon, Larry, TXF, baby boyfriends, flirting.

“Have you ever been to Leeds?” Louis asks one afternoon during a rehearsal break, his head on Harry’s shoulder while he plays with his hair, winding individual curls around his index finger before letting them spring free. “How’s your hair so bouncy, Harold? It defies the laws of physics. I can’t believe you even exist,” he adds, tugging a ringlet. 

Harry flushes, trying and failing to curb the aching smile that splits his face. Louis’s watching intently, making sure that his dimple comes out because, somehow, Louis is the type of boy who likes dimples and curly hair and all the other things that Harry was once teased about by a particularly nasty schoolyard bully in fifth year. He wrinkles his nose, trying to keep the smile from taking over his _whole_ face, but it’s useless, really. Louis makes him useless. “Course I’ve been to Leeds,” he mumbles, prickling under the heat of Louis’s gaze. “I have an auntie and uncle who live there.” 

Louis groans, tilting his head back, and Harry has to look down at him, at the newly exposed ripple of his throat. “Noooo, not the city, the music festival. Bunch of bands, bunch of stages. Totally magical time. You know...all that.” 

“Oh,” Harry says, biting his lip and flicking at Louis’s chin. “Then, no, I haven’t.” 

Louis looks up at him with bright eyes. His smile, usually wicked and sharp-edged and forever cutting into Harry’s soft spots until he’s _squirming,_ is a rare, soft thing in this moment. “This year, you’re going with me. I’ve decided.” 

Harry’s heart flutters, like it does every time Louis decides something like this for him, effortless and sincere and sudden. _Whether or not we win, we’re moving in together after this. I’ve decided,_ or, _This hoodie is ridiculously comfortable, so it’s mine now. I’ve decided._ Harry smiles again, eyes half-lidded as he blinks at Louis, so blinded by him. “Okay, when is it?” 

“End of summer,” Louis announces. “It doesn’t even matter who's playing because, like, just the whole atmosphere and _vibe_ is really cool. Stan and me mates from home and I have gone the last two years...we split a tent, camp for the whole weekend,” he explains, waggling his eyebrows. 

Harry worries his lower lip with his teeth, cocking his head, “You want to split a tent with me and Stan and your mates from home?” 

“Don’t be daft,” Louis scoffs, prodding the corner of his mouth with his tongue, a flash of irresistible pink that makes Harry dizzy. “Stan and everyone else can have a separate tent, they’re banished. You and me get our own.” He reaches out, makes a fist around Harry’s jumper strings, and tugs them. “For privacy,” he adds with a sparkle to his eye, like Harry doesn’t _know_ what he’s implying. 

“In that case,” Harry smirks, leaning dangerously close to Louis’s face, close enough that their breath mingles, and he can see the little constellation of freckles under Louis’s left eye. “I’ll go with you.” 

“You better,” Louis whispers, licking his lips. They can’t kiss for real at rehearsal like this, or they _could_ , but the interns on the show already hate them for making their life hell, and Harry has been scared half-straight with reprimands by this point, so they make do with getting in each other’s faces and breathing out onto one another’s lips, getting as _close close close_ as they can without someone carrying a clipboard coming over to yell at them. But it gets _hard,_ really, to remember that they aren’t supposed to. Harry’s about to drift right in when Louis pushes him away, palm splayed on his chest, eyes wide and hazy all at once. “Save it for the private tent, Hazza.” 


End file.
